The BDX standard will describe an architecture (or sets of reference architectures) where two entities exchange business documents in a secure and reliable way through the use of gateways (sometimes also referred to as access points), which is also known as the "four-corner model".

The purpose of the TC is therefore to define the specifications of a lightweight and federated messaging and trust infrastructure for reliable data exchange, messaging and web services interoperability between domains. Here, a "domain" can be any community whose members (a) are connected through a shared system, and (b) may interact with others across domains.

Regardless of each domain's internal workings, such interactions entail them each consuming and exposing to others over the Internet certain interfaces. These specifications should provide a framework for domains to interoperate securely and reliably (via Web Services), which can therefore be viewed as an Inter-cloud Web Services framework.

The TC specifications should be lightweight but, wherever and to the extent possible, based on profiles of existing standards from OASIS and elsewhere that are widely-used and proven, or otherwise seen to be generally applicable. Approaches that are modular and agnostic about data content and implementation architectures will be preferred.

The TC will focus first on requirements for exchanges between groups of related domains around standardized processes/data. Requirements of cross-domain business documents exchange, with its corresponding use cases, and implied interoperability requirements will inform prioritization of the TC's initial deliverables. The TC will specifically address requirements submitted by the Large Scale Pilots ("LSPs") in the area of e-government PEPPOL and e-CODEX. The work of the TC will contribute to the ongoing convergence of Pan-European messaging and trust infrastructures for reliable data exchange.

In certain areas the work will therefore initially be centered on the work of these LSPs (notably on SMLP around identity and service discovery, addressing and profiling), and will also consider other approaches and related specifications (e.g. DNS, ebXML CPA, UDDI, ebXML RegRep, WS-Discovery), The TC may define or profile more than one such specification(s).

In other areas, published specifications today may be absent or have gaps. In such cases the TC will attempt to identify relevant standards or work-in-progress at OASIS or other SDOs to establish liaisons with and provide requirements for such efforts, as needed.

Scope of work of the TC:

The specific objectives will be to define, specify and maintain the following:

Use cases and requirements, based on submissions;

Profiling / gap analysis of existing standards with reference to the use cases and requirements, potentially including:

Addressing / Routing / Discovery (SML and related technologies)

Service profiles/Capabilities (SMP, CPA and others)

Identity/Authentication

Trust Frameworks

Transport / Reliable Messaging (e.g. AS4)

Unified architecture for all processes necessary and sufficient for the superset of supported use cases;